Bihar’s Education Minister Chandrashekhar remained defiant despite massive outrage over his controversial statement on Hindu epic “Ramcharitmanas” across the country.

“Whatever I said is correct. I stand by my statement,” said the three-term MLA from Madhepura assembly segment Chandrasekhar while talking to a section of media on Friday.

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On the other hand, BJP slammed the minister for his remarks and demanded that the CM Nitish Kumar should immediately sack him from the ministry. Recently, BJP MP Subramaniam Swamy has dared him to say the same for Quran. Several state BJP leaders have criticised the minister for his controversial remarks on Hindu epic.

According to reports, a case has been filed against the RJD minister in Muzaffarpur and Kishanganj. Ayodhya’s seer Paramhansh Acharya has also called on the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government to sack him with immediate effect.

The ruling seven-party alliance “Mahagathbandhan” once again caught the limelight with a war of words. The former agriculture minister and a son of the RJD state president Sudhakar Singh is already in the thick of controversy over his recent series of ‘ugly’ remarks against CM Nitish Kumar. Singh continued his tirade against the CM despite his condemnation from grand alliance partners including RJD and Congress. Janta Dal United ( JDU) leaders have been putting pressure on the deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav to sack him from the party. RJD is yet to take any action against him.

Now, the education minister hit the headlines while addressing the 15th convocation of the Nalanda Open University (NOU) here at Bapu Sabhagar auditorium a couple of days back. During his speech at the event he claimed that books like Ramcharitmanas, Manusmritiand and The Bunch of Thoughts by Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar worked towards keeping 85 per cent of the population in the country backward. He also claimed that while ‘lower castes, Ramcharitmanas  advocate keeping lower caste, Dalit including women illiterate.

Fifty nine-year-old Chandrashekhar, a postgraduate from Kanpur University further said that these Hindu religious books spread hatred in the society. “This is the reason why people burnt “Manusmriti” and took exception to a portion of Ramcharitmanas which talks against the education for Dalits, backwards and women,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court advocate Vineet Jindal has submitted a complaint against the education minister with the DCP of the cyber crime unit of Delhi police on January 12.

Jindal, in his tweet, shared a copy of his complaint in which he has lodged a cyber crime case – u/s 151A, 295,298, 505 of IPC. “Three books – manusmriti, Ramcharitmanas and Bunch of Thoughts by Gowalkar have been spreading caste- related hatred in different eras,” he said in his complaint.

The former IPS officer and the secretary of the Mahabir Mandir Trust board Acharya Kishore Kunal, talking to the media, said that the minister should not speak about such issues in a convocation. He is free to speak his own point of view  but the platform was not appropriate, he said and added that he will soon organise a seminar in which the minister will also be invited. He is free to speak his point of view in this seminar if he is willing, Kunal said.